Talk:Irelia/@comment-190.55.76.250-20120503233936/@comment-4957501-20120504060723
She's a champion meant for going solo up top, any other role is pretty bad for her. But since most of the champions you listed up there are decent solo top's that should be fine. Her kit's very good and well rounded, considered by a few people to even be TOO well rounded. She has a gapcloser that deals bonus damage on top of your AD and applies on hit effects and also refreshes it's CD if it deals the killing blow a unit, a slow that will stun instead if your hp is lower than the hp of the person you're slowing, an on hit passive that returns a flat amount of health to her per hit that can be activated to deal a flat amount of true damage per hit and double the passive healing it provides for a few seconds, and an ultimate that doesn't do much damage, but can hit multiple enemies, has a fairly low cd and returns a portion of the damage it deals as health (think Mundo's cleaver, except it doesn't slow, but can pass through and damage multiple opponents and you can use 4 within a short time frame before it goes on CD.) You'll normally be turtling and playing defensive against most other solo top's because you'll be weaker early game and will usually lose exchanges, but her kit allows her to last hit with relative ease under her tower, atleast compared to most other champions, though it takes a little getting used to until you're able to do it without losing any cs to the tower. When mid game rolls in, provided you were able to keep your farm up and no one was fed senselessly, you'll probably be the strongest and hardest hitting champion on the map. This is the point when you have to make Irelia count. She inevitably falls off a fair bit late game since her main source of damage is flat and doesn't scale, so you have to make your strong mid count, dominate the map, grab a few towers and dragon and try your best to be a general terror and take the lead. Your role will be tanky DPS. Your job, if you have no proper tank. which is usually the case these days, will be to initate and try to deal as much damage to the enemy carry/squishies while your team does it's thing. If you have a tank you'll have much the same job anyway, except you won't have to initiate. Her build..... well, everyone has their own opinion on that particular topic, but Trinity Force and/or Wit's End are considered core on her by most players. She's one of the few champions in the game who is able to utilize all three parts of Trinity Force well without wasting any of them and since most of her damage comes from Hiten Style's active and therefore scales best with AS, Wit's End will allow you to maximize your damage with the AS, give you magic damage on hit so you deal all 3 types of damage on hit (Physical, Magical and True), and also gives you a decent chunk of MR which will go a long way to keep you from being blown up once you dive into teamfights. Other than these 2 items, she can basically build full tank and still dish out better damage than most bruisers mid game, but will deal lesser damage late game, though not by all that much and your tankiness should more than make up for it if you've managed to farm well. That's about all I can think of atm. She's definitely worth the IP IMHO and is fun to play. She might not be in as good a place as a few other solo top's right now, but she definitely still has her own strengths and if you play her keeping them in mind, you should do just as well. It might take you a while to get used to her, since she plays differently from most other solo top's by virtue of being the only assassin bruiser currently in the League, but you'll definitely find her rewarding if you nail her playstyle down. I have a feeling there's going to be an influx of Irelia's soon because there's always an Irelia in atleast one or two of the 5 featured games in the LoL client, but I'm just speculating here. Good luck! :)